Unexpected combinations

Oh, and if I’m reading it right - and I believe I saw it work this way in game - using Wrong Place And Time, Setback only has to pay 3 tokens to redirect the damage from Looking Up, and only applies the damage bonus from High Risk Behavior once the damage is redirected to a Villain Target!

Of course, he may have to buy off the boosted damage from villains just to direct a few points back at them…

3rd round at 31 tokens?! That’s a feat in and of itself!

Best I can figure in one turn is 13: 2 if both Behaviors are out at the start, Fumbling Fool @ :h:=5, Risk power +1 to top deck the other Fool. You must’ve had some extra plays or powers to pull it off!

2 Likes

I had F5 Legacy and XPW AA helping, but yeah, it took some fortuitous draws to make it happen - a fat Cash Out can help a lot in that respect, but mostly I just got the right cards at the right time.

This may have been mentioned somewhere upthread, and it’s an obvious one since the promo is designed with her in mind, but just to get the ball rolling on my contributions here: Unity playing Hasty Augmentation on Omnitron-U, after he’s already used Volatile Wiring once, allows him to create a second “augmented” Volatile Wiring effect, both of which last until his next turn. So if the villain refuses to blow up his stuff, he can just go Singularity or Self-Sabotage, or even Focused Plasma Cannon and then Rocket Punch himself to get the Cannon and all his other Components to blow up. The result will be one instance of 2 damage, from the normal VW, and one instance of 4 damage from the HA-VW, for every card which is destroyed this way. Throw in Slip Through Time for extra fun.

Or, for a more straightforward interaction that works with the original OX, you could always just HA a Defensive Blast for 12 damage (9 if you’re using Ablative Coating instead of the other two Platings) to every nonhero target. This one takes a lot less setup than the first version, and is better against villains with a lot of minions, but if you’re fighting someone like Progeny or Plague Rat (or even Kaargra Warfang, where the 4-damage instances are worth favor tokens), the O-U+U combo is the way to go.

I’m not going to respond to most of the old posts, but this is one I have to mention:

Well I did play it wrong at the table, at least once (and probably more than that). In one of my first 20 or so games, way back in like 2015, I played Fanatic against The Dreamer, and thought End of Days x2 was a super easy win. I’m not sure if I counted correctly on how many Projections needed to come out in the second phase, or if I just got lucky with Violent Nightmares, but I thought it was a super lame way to win. Turns out I was right and this shouldn’t have worked.

This interaction should absolutely be in the Fireside Chats or some other FAQ.

I’m sure others have noticed this before, but in a random setup game with Santa Guise in the Temple of Zhu Long, I discovered that those pesky Shinobi Assassins, which have a way of ending up on top of hero decks, can end up in the heroes’ Gift-mas piles instead… Just let them pile up in one area, get your opponent down to the lowest HP, then let somebody unwrap a bunch of ninjas!

I also learned that when Guise uses “I Can Do That, Too!” on Hunted Naturalist, when you check effects in play, you get fun messages like “Guise may activate (Gazelle) effects. Zoom zoom!” (I haven’t seen what the other two animals say…)

Not really unexpected, but quite entertaining, was Voss’s attempted invasion of the Final Wasteland. With The Naturalist’s “Environmental Allies” in play, those cryptids weren’t a problem for the heroes, but Unforgiving Wasteland really neutered Forced Deployment. Sadly, Voss didn’t survive long enough for me to completely empty his deck…

3 Likes

This is relevant to your interests.

(Also you should change your username to vossamerica, if that’s possible on this forum.)

I’ve hit upon a combination that might be worth trying out, if you just really, really want to cripple a villain deck - Void Guard Writhe can play Grasping Shadow-Cloth and destroy the Shadow Cloak to prevent cards from being played by a deck of his choice. His base power Sink Into Shadow recovers the Cloak, and Sky-Scraper’s Micro Assembler allows him to retrieve the Shadow-Cloth from his deck after it is shuffled in at the beginning of Writhe’s turn.

So, Writhe plus Sky-Scraper plus anybody who can consistently give Writhe an extra power use equals a villain deck that just. sits. there.

1 Like

Does it work if the villain trash is empty? Don’t you need something there in order to select the deck and move a card to the bottom? Good thinking, though!

1 Like

Per the card text, the option to destroy the Shadow Cloak and prevent cards plays from the selected deck is not conditioned on being able to execute the first step, so I believe it will work just fine with an empty discard pile.
However, I have already overwritten the log file for the game against Voss in which I tested the trick, and I can’t recall for certain whether there was a card in there the first time I did it, though I don’t think there was, since the first villain turn put both Gene-Bound Guards in play right off the bat.

And you know what’s the best place to try this combo out? THE PILLARS OF HERCULES! You get that extra power you need, plus you get to play a card every round apart from the Shadow-Cloth, plus a card draw to cover the cost of the Micro-Assembler, plus extra card plays and powers for everyone else. Try this on H=5 for extra fun.

2 Likes

Oh, man - There are tons of options to get an extra power use, of course, but I agree, that one does sound like loads of fun…and its only drawback is negated every round when Writhe does his thing!

1 Like

I found one today: Natural Born Vigor only destroys itself when The Naturalist opts for beginning of turn healing if he successfully heals. So, Medico Malpractice’s power turns the healing into damage and the card remains in play! It’s an extra power usage and a free 4 or more damage at the beginning of The Naturalist’s turn.

I thought I saw that happen and decided to confirm, and picked Legacy, Medico Malpractice, and Hunted Naturalist in the Final Wasteland. First of all, HOLY MOLY does that trio pump out damage!!! But second, I discovered a new combo. Con’s Bunker came out of the environment deck first, and I kept opting not to destroy it. The end of turn healing + malpractice was usually more than enough to zap whatever came out from the extra card play! :laughing:

3 Likes

This also works if Naturalist is less than 4 HP away from being at full. You can get a free heal back to full and the card stays out, because 4 HP was not regained! :smiley:

2 Likes

If that’s true, then presumably Oppressive Smog in the Time Cataclysm also allows Natch to get 2 HP healed every round. And there’s the VOTM Operative’s incap ability, which reduces it to 1 HP. Both of these should be tested in the app to verify they work.

What about Savanna Nocturna in the Nexus of the Void? If he gains 5 HP, that’s not 4 HP so he should keep the card! :face_with_raised_eyebrow:rules lawyering

2 Likes

And if so, that’s a combo with regular Void Guard Medico’s Clinical Consult as well. Or hey, maybe use Second Opinion to replace it with a third power usage?

1 Like

Now that’d be a really interesting case to test…

1 Like

Desperate Prey at the start of each turn, alternating between the two forms you don’t have in play. Each round can have two card plays with all three form effects, then use the full effects on both copies of Natural Form’s Power! That’s what we call Chimera from the Mist Storm Verse! :rhinoceros::goat::crocodile:

2 Likes

The hard part is just managing to actually draw one of the three Form cards…

Confirmed, he heals 2 and keeps the card!

Same deal, not a surprise now.

This was the one I was most interested in, since it doesn’t follow the pattern of the others. And it turns out, the card does get destroyed! So I guess he has to heal at least 4 HP!

1 Like